


Part of the Human Heart

by NPennyworth



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom - Susan Kay, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Child Abuse, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Romance, Soulmate AU, Soulmate Lockets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29612769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NPennyworth/pseuds/NPennyworth
Summary: Everybody is born with a heart locket, and the key to their soulmate's heart. Everybody, that is, except for Erik.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 47
Kudos: 58





	1. The Innocence of Youth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FanaticFangirl2602](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanaticFangirl2602/gifts).



> Inspired by Belle's lovely [soulmate AU post](https://belleyells.tumblr.com/post/635362189132414976/new-soulmate-prompt), although I doubt she expected this much angst. I'm trying a new technique called "writing everything before I post" so you may expect weekly updates on this! Title and chapter titles are from the song The Human Heart from the musical Once on This Island.

His mother has two lockets hung around her neck. He waits for a day when she’s in a good mood, when he’s been quiet all week and hasn’t complained once, after Marie has left for the evening and his mother is sitting by the window sipping a cup of tea.

He’s not to speak unless spoken to first, so he stands in the doorway and waits for her to notice him. Eventually he has to give a slight cough, and a frown mars those beautiful features as his mother turns her gaze towards him. He automatically reaches up a hand, to check that the mask is still in place.

“What is it?” she asks, but her voice is only annoyed, not colored in the many shades of anger he has learned to identify, so he asks.

“What are those lockets?” He points to her neck, where they lie hidden under her dress, only the delicate chain showing.

“These?” she says, pulling them out. He nods and steps forward to see them better: two little hearts, one white with delicate flowers etched into it and the other golden with a trellis design. A tiny key nestles in the centre of each of them. “They’re our hearts. Mine and Charles’.” His father, but she will not say that. She hates to think that any part of him came from her beloved Charles. He’s heard her complain before, about him being a changeling or sired by the devil or whatever evil being saw fit to kill her husband and replace her baby with  _ him. _

“Where did you get them?” he asks, cautiously stepping forward again. He doesn’t mean to be too close, but the designs on the hearts are so very small and he’s certain there’s a pattern underneath the golden trellis, something he could see if he were permitted to look a little closer.

“When we were born we had them,” she says. “Everybody does. They’re meant to help people find their true love.”

“Oh,” he says with a nod. The next question falls out before he can stop it. “Where’s mine?”

Her face twists, an expression he is all too familiar with, and his stomach drops. He tries to run but he has come too close, and her hands drop the hearts and reach out. Nails turn into claws and her fingers clamp down on his arm like steel, and he knows he will have a hand shaped bruise there tomorrow. He tries to scramble back but she’s shaking him hard enough that the world is spinning and he can barely hear the words she’s snarling.

“Are you deaf too, you ugly thing? They’re for  _ people.  _ Why would you have one?  _ Never  _ ask me something like that again.” He is dragged upstairs and tossed into the attic, but not before her nails have made puncture marks in his arm. She releases him and he backs away, curling up against a wall and trying to make himself as small as possible. Trying to disappear, because he doesn’t want to be here while she’s this angry, doesn’t want to be  _ making  _ her this angry.

“I’m sorry Mama,” he says, but his throat is closing with tears and the words waver. He flinches as she raises a hand, but at the last moment she seems to change her mind and instead only tucks the lockets back underneath her dress and turns to leave. The lock clicks shut after she slams the door, but he doesn’t move for a long time after. He never sees the lockets again.

* * *

Travelling is the best decision he’s ever made. If he keeps moving it doesn’t matter that nowhere welcomes him, and when he keeps the world at a distance their horror won’t hurt.

He has become a master of illusion. He’s learned to watch everything, to observe humanity around them and mimic them, perfecting the illusion of a man. The mask is obvious, a necessity that would inspire only fear by itself, but there are other little touches. The names he adopts and sheds like garments (the latest, Erik, he prefers for it’s translation,  _ one who rules alone _ ), the elaborate showman’s gestures (not too quickly, not too close, all of humanity sharing his poor mother’s skittishness), and the voice (his only beauty, but what a beauty it is!). When the act runs smoothly the fear is mixed with awe, and most days that is enough. But there are some times, when he sees a young couple exchanging lockets and promises, that the ache in his chest becomes unbearable and he knows it’s time to move on. Yet no matter how far he travels the lockets taunt him.

In France it seems to be the custom to wear them everywhere, hidden under shirts and dresses but flaunting them when keys fit in the locks. He prefers Italy, where heart and key are kept safely stored away for the day a prospective suitor would arrive. It allows him to blend in far better, but when he foolishly oversteps the illusion shatters and now he can never return. Persia, where wearing the hearts boldly on top of each outfit and constantly trying different keys, gives him a degree of power for being without that fatal weakness that could tie two fates together in an instant. He learns far more about the lockets there than anywhere else, how they appear around the necks of sleeping newborns with a key clutched in their hands, how they’re unbreakable and uniquely wondrous, how they mark your soulmate. You have the key to their heart, and they yours. Sometimes the designs match, and sometimes they are completely unexpected.

Yet with all his research Erik has never heard of anybody being born without one. Losing one later, yes; tragedies are common, where jealous lovers tear the hearts away from those who reject them and hold them for ransom, or more ambitious thieves stealing and selling them to con artists.

“Anybody could have replaced it with a replica. How can you even know it’s yours?” Erik mocks Nadir, in a night where he’s intruded on the daroga to drown the horrors of the day’s executions in drink and verbal barbs the man takes far too amicably.

“You know,” he says, reaching up to touch the twin lockets hung round his neck. “When you hold your set, your lock and key, you can recognize them. And I’d know Keya’s anywhere.”

The man is disgustingly sentimental over the hearts, constantly reaching up to touch them whenever he remembers his late wife. Erik had stolen them once, examined each locket and tiny key, observed how perfectly they’d fit in one another. It was one of the only times he’d seen panic in the daroga’s eyes as he’d called Erik and begged for his assistance in finding them. He’d silently replaced them and mocked the man for losing them in plain sight, but said nothing about the way Nadir’s hands trembled when he’d put them on again. The incident was never mentioned again, but the daroga was never without the lockets from that day forward.

After Persia, the world is no longer quite what it used to be and he finds he no longer wishes to travel. He wonders if this is what it is to grow old, the world around him losing colour to the point that the only thing that holds his interest is music. He designs the opera house and sensing his retirement constructs his house underneath it. The act of humanity is too tiring to maintain, and what has he ever gained from it? People are still wary, can still sense the wrongness at his core, so it is better for everyone that he remains a ghost.

Music can fill the void left behind from his missing heart, heal whatever he has in place of a soul, sustain him for the rest of his life. Yet even here in operas he’s mocked by the endless parade of lockets, lovers exchanging them in song or despairing over losing them. He writes his own opera, his Don Juan who locks away his heart and cares not for those he seduces, refusing every locket given to him and letting his passion speak for itself. If it’s ever performed perhaps the world will understand that soulmates aren’t everything, that one can be happy without the chain of a locket binding them to another. Perhaps one day he’ll be able to convince himself, once it’s perfect. He has all the time in the world, and very few distractions.

* * *

It is, in a fashion, his first gift. Not truly given to  _ him _ , but this only casts a small shadow over his mood. After all, the locket is so very beautiful.

Christine Daae was not what Erik had ever expected, yet how quickly she’s become the axle his world turns on! The past year has been the best of his life, training her and comforting her, acting as her angel while he lives only to hear her precious voice and see her beautiful smile. If he could love he’d love her, but since he knows he can’t he settles for being her servant. He never truly expected anything more, which is why her gift touches him so.

“I know you’ll keep it safe for me,” she says, placing her little heart shaped locket on the dresser before the mirror. “You’ve given me so much, and tonight I am yours, heart and soul. I’ll sing only for you.”

“No emperor has ever received so fine a gift,” he assures her, masterfully keeping his voice steady and warm as his mind races to understand her words. A heart is such a personal gift; he’s never seen hers before, given up on seeing any locket without stealing it first. And here hers sits, waiting for him, small with pink and gold and blue details he knows he will be able to examine up close. He is touched by her devotion to her angel, and quiets the little pang of guilt he feels.

Christine is good, and lovely, and innocent. She will not ever know what sort of creature her teacher is, and there is no need for her to! She loves him as her angel and he is content with the ruse. And now she asks for him to keep her heart safe while she performs, to guard it as she dedicates herself to music! He won’t ever ask for more, he’ll be satisfied basking in the radiance of her glory as she takes her place as the star she was born to be. It’s a dream so lovely he can hardly believe it, yet her gift seems to confirm that it is her dream too.

After a few more of his reassurances she leaves, and he quickly opens the mirror and reaches out. His hands are trembling as he picks up the locket and he’s glad he remembered to wear gloves; however much he longs to feel the fine textures it’s far too precious for his corpse skin to touch. It’s slightly heavier than he expected but so very delicate and beautiful, pale with shades of pink and blue, gold filigree twining around the keyhole in the centre. It’s so very Christine, her purity and grace and innocence captured in the shape in his hands, the most precious thing he’s ever been allowed to touch. He can feel its weight as he tucks it into his pocket and steps back into the tunnels, heading for Box Five. 

Tonight is Christine’s debut, and he will watch it holding her heart. It is without a doubt the best night of Erik’s life.

* * *

When nights go awry, such as this lovely debut, Erik can always fix things. The problem is that Christine has gone out, gone to dinner with a charming vicomte who stopped her before she reached her dressing room. It is very unlike her, as usually she turns men down, but his assertions of a childhood friendship and her agreement are most troubling. Something must be done.

Here is the plan, and it is very simple: when Christine returns with the boy Erik will kill him. The Punjab will make a lovely necklace around his throat, and his dying gurgles will sound so much better than that incessant drivel he spews about soulmates and summers long gone (as he too should be!).

But no, then that pesky Persian will surely know it was him. The only reason he lurks around the opera is to find news that Erik has broken his promise of no more murders, and he is unlikely to see reason. And worse, Christine would be horrified. He has inspired horror in every other person he’s met, and the very thought of her lovely features paling in terror makes his heart clench. No, he will not kill the boy, no matter how much he wants to. As much as it galls him he cannot stop her from seeing him by removing the young suitor.

But it doesn’t matter! Erik has her heart, is carrying it now in his vest, and she has given it to him freely! Has even thanked him for watching over it! He pulls out the heart and stares at it; in the dim light of the tunnel he can barely make out the design, but that hardly matters. Simply holding it calms him, his anger fading as his fingers caress it. Such a lovely heart, the most beautiful in the whole world! The boy has arrived too late to claim it, and Erik will certainly not allow him to take it. 

Once Christine returns Erik will remind her of her promise and warn her that the de Chagny whelp will do her no good. Even if his intentions are honorable, which they so rarely are for aristocrats, a marriage at this time would clip his songbird’s wings. A vicomtesse cannot perform! She has probably forgotten this in her excitement over her debut, but he can remind her. Surely she will trust her angel, who has this very night received her heart and soul!

_ And if she asks for it back?  _ He snarls and forces himself to set the heart down before he crushes it. He will not survive having to return it, watching her leave with this  _ Raoul  _ and see his grubby fingers grasping her delicate heart. But could he survive keeping it from her? Could he stand to see her tears, the betrayal that he’d see in her eyes?

And such a refusal would hardly be angelic, would it? She wouldn’t need to see him to believe him a devil, and even if somehow he could maintain the ruse it would be a wedge driven between them.

In this horrible dinner Erik sees the end of the happiness he’s stolen, the companionship he’s had his first taste of, all the days of music and nights of dreaming of her. He hasn’t deserved any of it, will never deserve it, but he will not let his joy be stolen without a fight!

The Angel of Music cannot convince Christine to stay, but maybe a man could. It has been years since he’s tried to act as one but for Christine he’d do anything. And if he dons the costume, plays the role well, and has a key that will unlock her heart then perhaps…

When he was younger he’d idly wondered what a heart belonging to him would look like. He’d dreamt up lockets of crystal and clockwork and jewels, with the haunted feeling that if he did have a heart it would appear as twisted and rotten as his face. But it doesn’t matter what his hypothetical locket would look like, he just needs to craft one for the illusion he’ll hide behind. A locket for him, and a key that will fit her heart. She won’t have a key to unlock his locket, but he already knew that she wouldn’t love him. And that’s fine. If he can prove that he loves her, if he can unlock her heart, then she’ll stay. That’s all he’ll ask of her.


	2. The Failures and the Foolishness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's reading this, I'm glad that you're enjoying it!

“Erik, what are these?” He looks up from his composition to see his love holding a box in her hands, and his heart drops. 

“Nothing, my dear,” he says, standing and reaching out for the box. She ignores him, and to his horror he sees she’s already been digging through the contents.

“It’s filled with keys,” she says, her nose wrinkling as she examines them. And Erik is cursing himself.

Things had been going so well! Far better than he’d expected revealing himself to Christine would go. He’d only collapsed into tears at her feet and begged her forgiveness, and like the divine being she truly was she’d agreed to not elope with the boy as she got to know Erik the man instead of the Angel of Music.

Erik is certain she is mainly motivated by pity, or curiosity, or ambition. She has been cast in a good role for the next season and expressed a desire to keep her voice teacher. It is nothing more than the realization that Erik is the only one who can help her reach such heights, and he will not let himself believe otherwise.

He had not been thinking of his project when he’d invited her to stay the night, only that the upcoming week off was such a very long time without voice lessons and they could get more done if she didn’t have to come to and from the opera. He was also simultaneously haunted by images of the boy spiriting her away (a week unattended is more than enough time for anybody to fall madly in love with Christine) and of Christine staying in his home, sitting on his sofa and sipping from his teacups and sleeping in the room he made her.

She had actually agreed, and not pressed the topic of her heart when she inquired and Erik had changed the subject, and not realised how much time he spent every night after she had gone to bed sitting on the couch holding the pillow she had been leaning against and failing to imagine the feel of her hand in his. A perfect week, until he left the door to his workroom open in his hurry to write down the new aria he’s now composing, solely inspired by the way her hair shines in the firelight. And now he is ruined.

“These don’t seem like they open doors,” Christine says, looking at him and raising an eyebrow. She lifts one out, and he winces to see which one she picked. That one had taken hours of work, quartz carved and polished until it shone like a gem, and when it hadn’t fit he’d snapped it in half in his frustration.

“Christine, it’s very sharp, please be careful,” he pleads, reaching forward for the box and flinching back as she steps away from him and gives him a _look._ While he treasures every moment Christine lays her perfect gaze on him he treasures this particular _look_ less than the others, as she tends to give it to him when she is disappointed in him or thinks he’s acting oddly. He has received that look far too many times and is certain each time will be the last, as she will finally see through his illusion and the _look_ will morph into horror and she will leave him.

“What are these for?” Christine asks, and Erik feels himself wither a little.

“It is nothing for Christine to worry about,” he says, only a very small note of desperation in his voice. “Would Christine like Erik to read to her? That would be much more interesting for Christine than looking at Erik’s dusty old things.”

“They look like heart keys,” she says. “Where did you get these?” And her expression is gradually turning to fear and disgust, as he’s always known it would, and Erik moves too quickly for her to stop him and snatches the box back.

“No more of this,” he declares, drawing himself up to his full height and closing the box, mentally debating if he should just lock his workroom or dispose of the failed keys altogether so that this will never happen again. “This is for Erik to worry about, and Christine should not ask too many questions. She will not be happy with what she finds.”

“‘Christine’ is not happy already,” she snaps at him, stepping forward and completely ignoring how he towers over her. “‘Christine’ would like to know how Erik came across a box filled with heart keys! And where her own locket is!”

“It is safe!” Erik protests. “And you gave it to Erik, as a gift-”

“I gave it to you before I found you had been stealing them!” she yells, and Erik blinks in surprise. _Stealing?_ Her beautiful eyes have tears pricking in the corners as she continues to yell at him, saying something about how he has no right and how dare he, and his mind is spinning. Christine thinks he has been stealing them? Like some common thief or smuggler, one of those despicable men who make a living off of ransoming soulmates?

“They are Erik’s!” he yells over her, and when she falls into a shocked silence he realises he has just _yelled_ at _Christine_ and winces. But it is too late now, she probably already hates him and yelling cannot make it worse. He forges on. “Erik has made these, and Christine’s locket is safe and is the only one! He hasn’t stolen any of them!”

“Made them?” She reaches out a hand for the box and he shakes his head and backs away.

“They are not ready yet,” he tells her. “But soon, Erik will have a key! He needs just a little more time, and then it will be perfect!” He realises with shame that he’s near tears, and he turns away from her. “And then it will be Christine’s, and she may have her locket again too. Erik just needs a little more time.”

“You’re trying to make a key?” Her voice is soft, and Erik flinches when he feels a hand on his shoulder. She pulls it back and he curses himself while trying to memorize the exact sensation of the touch, as he will probably not be granted another. “One that will fit my locket?”

This is not how Erik had planned on telling her. He’d pictured a romantic boat ride, where he’d give her roses and his finest vintage wine and chocolates, and then he’d present the key and locket to her and show her how perfectly they fit. But none of his keys are working. He hasn’t slept in weeks, feverishly making and remaking them with her beautiful locket sitting on his desk, mocking him with its refusal to open. Most of them won’t even fit in the keyhole, and he swears that the inner mechanisms must be changing with every key he tries.

Without the key, Erik knows that Christine will not want to learn of his affections. He’s managed to keep his love hidden under the veneer of being her music teacher, insisting he cares for her just for the sake of her voice, because anything else will only frighten her. Or maybe she’ll become angry, just like his mother. Those are the only two possibilities.

But Christine is still speaking to him, in a soft and kind voice, and she doesn’t sound angry or afraid. She sounds a bit confused, and a bit sad, but mostly like she’s trying to get him to stop crying and look at her. He stays turned away and lifts the mask for a moment to wipe away his tears before reaffixing it and turning to face her.

Christine is holding a key. It is a very lovely key, a beautiful golden colour and very long, and although his vision is still blurry he thinks he sees a flower climbing it. He looks at it and then at her, and she’s smiling at him. _Smiling!_ But before he can be lost in that beautiful expression she’s speaking again, and this time he tries to pay attention.

“Do you have your heart?” she’s asking him. “We can try my key in it.” Erik nods and goes to fetch the heart for her, the one he’s made.

It is very small, and made of bronze. He’d planned on adding more detail to it when he finally finished the key, so it would look like the two match. At the moment there are only a few scratches on the surface, and he feels the urge to hide it from her until he looks up at her kind gaze. He then holds it out for her, and her fingers nearly brush his when she picks it up.

Then she lifts the key towards it, and frowns when she sees that the little bronze heart has a keyhole far too small for her key. Erik reaches out to take his heart back.

“It will not fit, but that does not matter,” he explains. “Only Christine’s needs to work. And Erik can make the locket better for her too, so it can be beautiful like hers. Whatever she wants.” Maybe if he makes a beautiful locket she’ll be able to show it off to her friends, and she’ll love it enough that she won’t mind that it’s his.

“Of course it matters,” Christine says, and she looks very sad. She does not return the bronze heart, turning it over in her hands and looking at it closely. “I thought…” she stops, rubbing her thumb over one of the scratches and frowning at it. “Erik, is this really your heart?”

“It is the heart that Erik owns,” he tells her, and she looks at him.

“Yes, but is it your locket? The one that will tell you your soulmate?” He looks away. “Erik, I understand that you want to make this perfect for me, but I’d much rather have your real heart. Even if you don’t like the way it looks. I promise I won’t judge it.”

She thinks he’s hiding his real heart from her, and maybe a real key to go with it. He wishes that the world worked the way Christine believes it does, that his heart was only hideously ugly instead of nonexistent.

“That is it,” he says, gesturing at her hands. “Erik has no other.”

“Did you lose it?” she presses. “Was it taken from you?” He reluctantly shakes his head. “So where-”

“Erik made that one for you,” he interrupts. “He can make it better, if you want the key to fit. Or a new key, he can make one for you too! And it will look just like a real one-”

“So it is a fake!” she says. “Erik, I want a real heart. I want this to be real.”

“This?” he echoes, and she steps forward and he realises just how close she’s been standing to him.

“Us,” she says, her arms reaching out and surrounding him. Erik freezes, but Christine thankfully doesn’t notice, instead pressing her face into his chest. They stand there for a moment, and Erik is certain that his heart is going to hammer its way out of his chest. He realises that perhaps his arms should do something too, but she is letting go and stepping back far too soon and he curses himself for missing the opportunity, and then again for being disappointed. It is his first hug, surely he’s not so selfish as to also want a chance to hug her back?

“I care about you, Erik,” she says. “And I was so glad when you finally stopped pretending to be an angel-”

“Christine knew Erik was pretending?” he asks, and she laughs.

“I’m not actually crazy, Erik,” she says. “Angels don’t show up to give people music lessons, especially in opera houses known to be haunted.”

“So you thought Erik was a ghost?”

“For a while,” she admitted. “But you were much too interested in gossiping about Carlotta and hearing about my day for somebody dead, and didn’t react at _all_ to the holy water, and I heard you moving through the wall a couple of times so eventually I figured it out.”

“ _Christine!_ ” Erik exclaims, scandalized, as he thinks over all their previous interactions. “But to have a man teach you alone… and you gave me your locket! When you thought Erik was not a ghost or an angel?”

“It’s not very proper, I know,” she says, blushing very prettily. “But I didn’t know how else to get you to introduce yourself, and I’ve really felt I’ve come to know you. We’ve been talking for a year, and you’ve always been such a gentleman, so I thought you needed a push.”

Erik’s mind is spinning enough that he simply turns and sits on the couch. In any other situation he’d be more excited about Christine sitting down next to him, but right now he is trying to comprehend a world where Christine was aware that he was not actually a divine messenger sent by her father but just a mortal hiding in the walls and still decided to talk with him. 

It is rather uncomfortable to think that if she knew that he was not an angel the whole time perhaps some of his other secrets have also not been hidden as well as he thought, but surely he must be hiding enough for Christine to still be here, sitting next to him and smiling. She thinks he is perhaps a very odd man, but that means she still believes he is human.

“I know it’s a lot,” she says. “I don’t mind taking it slow, if that’s what you need. You don’t need to give me your locket yet if you’re not comfortable, or explain what happened to your key. But I’ve already given you my heart, and I think I should give you this too.” And with that Christine hands him the key she has been holding, and the moment Erik’s fingers touch it he feels something click into place.

This key belongs to Christine, and it will help her find her soulmate. And she thinks that Erik could be her soulmate. But sitting there with her key in his hand and the rest of her sitting next to him gazing at him so patiently Erik knows that this must stop.

Erik does not have a locket, or a key, or a soulmate. But Christine does, and because they are soulmates that person can love Christine as she deserves. Not as Erik loves her, as an obsessive madman who keeps her underground for weeks and demands she cease seeing other men, as somebody who puts hours into trying to build a key that will trick her into staying.

He imagines for a moment that Christine is truly his soulmate, that the love he feels for her is good and natural instead of wrong and horrible, and the surge of joy he feels at this fantasy must be nothing compared to what it’s like for real people. For Christine, when she finds her real soulmate. All Erik has been doing is keeping that joy from her.

“Christine,” he says, and to his surprise his voice isn’t choked with tears despite what he’s about to do. Perhaps this moment of clarity has made him sane enough to do this without breaking down, even though he surely will after. “Christine, I love you.” And then he reaches up and takes his mask off, and while she’s still staring he tells her the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel compelled to remind everyone that this is not actually the end. I'll see you next week for the last chapter, but in the meantime the comment section is always open :)


	3. That Lead Us to the Truth

The house does not look smaller. Erik had hoped it would, since he’s far taller now than he was when he left, but instead he simply feels smaller. Like no time has passed and he’s still that same scared little boy, huddled in his mother’s attic with a dirty rag covering his face.

A gentle tug on his hand brings him back to this moment, when he is a man with a suitcase standing in front of his mother’s house instead of that desperate child, and to keep himself from slipping back into memories he fixes his gaze on the little gloved hand currently holding his.

“Does anyone still live here?” Christine asks with a hushed voice, and he shrugs. His mother had wanted to marry a doctor, perhaps she’d moved in with him years ago. Erik couldn’t imagine her wanting to stay any longer in this house, where his presence had trapped both of them. She was probably relieved when he’d left.

“Let’s see if we can find out,” Christine says, tugging him forward. He flinches when she knocks on the door and her hand tightens on his, the pressure comforting instead of painful. It calms him for a moment, but he still jumps at the shout from down the street. For one horrible moment he thinks that somebody has called the guardames, or perhaps decided to take matters into their own hands seeing a hideous monster walking down the street with a beautiful woman, but the moment fades when he realises that Christine isn’t worried. She steps in front of him but smiles and waves, and Christine would not turn him in unless their task here was completed.

“Stay right there!” a voice calls, one that he can recognize as familiar now that the panic is ebbing from his mind. “I thought I’d never see you again!”

“Marie Perrault,” he says, looking at the face of somebody whose hair once was bright red and whose face still is covered in freckles, although she has many more wrinkles now. For some odd reason she is smiling, but perhaps she is happy to see Christine. Until he saw Christine he thought Marie was the most beautiful woman in the world, after his mother.

There is a blur of pleasantries he fails to catch, being unpracticed at friendly meetings in general, but Christine sees them to Marie’s house (the same little cottage just down the street he remembers her living in, and feels his shoulders relax once they leave the oppressive shadow of his old house) and seated in her backyard as she brings out tea. Christine has not stopped holding his hand for a moment, not even to shake Marie’s, and he is absurdly grateful for it.

“What brings you back here?” Marie asks them, carrying out a tea tray and beginning to pour. “And with such lovely company, too!”

“This is Christine,” Erik manages to say, and although he opens his mouth again he cannot find any other words so he looks at her and she smiles and gives his hand another squeeze.

“I’m his fiancée,” she says. Marie looks far less shocked than she should be at that, but Christine is beaming and does not give her a chance to respond. “We came to try and find some information we need for the wedding. Erik says you were his nurse?”

“I was,” Marie says, blinking at them. “I’d like to congratulate you two, I’ve always wished for the best for… Erik.”

Christine knows him too well, speaking quickly so he has no time to respond to that audacious statement. “Thank you, we’re very excited. We’re here for this, specifically.” And she finally lets go of his hand only to hold it out palm up. Erik obligingly reaches into his jacket and pulls out the key and locket she had insisted he carry. He’d protested, but secretly enjoyed the sensation of carrying them, certain it would be his last chance.

Christine is a lovely woman, and Erik is just beginning to realise how intelligent she is. But there are some things she simply doesn’t want to believe, and among these is the fact that Erik does not have a soulmate. She’d insisted on coming here with him to investigate, certain she’ll be able to find some hidden clue, some thief who’d stolen his locket without his mother ever noticing, and he’d allowed it. It is not a terrible punishment, given his lies. At least he gets to have tea in a garden with Christine, even if he cannot lift the mask enough to drink, and even though he knows Marie will repeat the same truth he’s known all his life and Christine will finally leave.

But Marie does not sigh and explain that Erik does not have a locket. Instead her eyes go very wide, and she says “oh” and her eyes fill with tears.

“I didn’t know what to do with them,” she says. “I didn’t know how to tell you. But I suppose you’re old enough now, and it’s been very unfair to keep them from you for so long.” And she stands and leaves.

In the silence Christine sips her tea and raises an eyebrow at him, as if to say that she expected this turn of events, and Erik stares at her.

“Perhaps she is running away,” he suggests. “She does not want to have this conversation, and so lied to give herself a head start while we sit and wait for her to return.”

“Then you have time to take a drink of your tea while we wait,” Christine says, and because he loves her he obliges. She has been trying to get him to take the mask completely off again but he refuses, so she is satisfied whenever she can persuade him to lift it and eat or drink something. He cannot fathom why, but the smile she gives him over her tea is enchanting even though he imagines what little she can see of his returning smile is crooked and awful.

Then she nearly makes him choke on his sip of tea by leaning over and giving him a quick kiss, right on his chin, and as he tries to comprehend how he could have just received such a loving gesture she pulls his mask back down and pats it, then straightens his tie and returns to sipping her tea.

It could have been hours between that kiss and Marie’s return and Erik would have not noticed, although he supposes it was probably a few rather quick moments. With her dislike of the mask she probably only replaced it because she knew he’d be uncomfortable not wearing it around Marie, although he makes a mental note to ask her later. Perhaps the kiss disgusted her and she felt the need to hide his face, but she looks like she is very happy instead of disgusted.

It takes Erik another moment to remember why it is important that Marie is coming back, and even then he refuses to believe it until she places a package on the table. It is a parcel that looks as though it should have been mailed many years ago, and it takes a nudge from Christine to allow his suddenly horribly heavy hands to reach towards it and begin to untie it.

“I thought about mailing it, but I had no address,” Marie is saying. “I was hoping that I might hear about you, a great musician or artist, and be able to send it to you. I never expected you to come back.” 

The paper comes off, and it reveals a box. One that he lifts the lid off of to reveal two objects nestled among tissue paper.

A key, and a locket.

Erik looks at the key first, because Christine squeals at the sight of it and lifts her locket. “Try it!” she urges him, and his hand is shaking as he grabs it. The key is shaped like a feather and seems to glow with its own light, and it fits perfectly within Christine’s locket. There is a small click he feels rather than hears as it turns, and the lock pops open.

“Erik?” Christine is calling him, although it sounds as if it’s coming from the other end of a long tunnel. His gaze is still fixed on the key and locket, a matching set, one a crystal heart and the other a feather from the wing of an angel, and Erik feels something bubble up from deep inside him.

This must be his. The key he had when he was an infant. But how does Marie have it now, and what does it mean now that he knows it fits Christine’s heart, and most of all, if he had a key and locket the whole time, if he is not and was not a monster without one, then-

“WHY?” he snarls, and he does not know when he stood but now he is looming over both the ladies and growling at them, key and locket abandoned on the table as his fists curl with rage. 

“I’m so very sorry,” Marie says, although her face is very pale. This must be very terrifying for her. Erik really cannot give a damn. “I should have told you, but Madeline-”

“My _mother_ told me that I had no soulmate,” he hisses, pointing an accusing bony finger at her. “She, as a matter of fact, told me that I had no _soul._ So now you come here, a doddering old fool with a key that _should not exist,_ and you had better have something more worthwhile to say than a useless _apology._ ”

Christine puts a hand on his arm, and he looks down at her to find that she has stood too. Most surprising of all is that her face, though pinched in anger, is not turned on him. She is glaring at Marie Perrault, who is cowering before her more than Erik.

“What my fiancé means to ask is how you have these,” she says. Her voice is very calm and collected and colder than the most severe Russian winter. “And how we were led to believe otherwise for so long.”

“I didn’t find them until after you were gone,” she says. “Madeline said she threw them in a river. I thought they were lost, and that I’d tell you when you were older. The morning we found out- after you left- I found her in the garden. She had dug them up and was crying over them.”

“Why would she do that?” Erik asks, and Marie gestures at the box. The box that still contains the heart.

“She insisted it was wrong,” Marie says. “I didn’t see it until after she had buried them. I had no idea she’d taken them, but when I saw… I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Dread filling his gut Erik turns back to the box, reaching out and lifting his locket from it. His locket, which at first appearance does not seem so horrifying that it would cause his mother to bury it, but as he examines it he realises why.

It is larger than he’d expected, and seems to be built of clockwork layers twisting over one another. The design is reminiscent of sheets of staff paper, curled into one another with notes peaking out, all shining a burnished copper. There is a certainty in him, a rightness he feels as he holds his locket for the first time in his life, and his fingers itch to play the notes he can see as he slowly unravels the symphony at the heart of him. But the most significant thing that becomes quickly evident is that there is no keyhole.

He sits back down, and hands it to Christine. How disappointing it must be, to win this victory only to discover that his locket does not make him less of a monster. He can only imagine the horror his mother felt upon seeing these appear, a delicate feather and a heart designed like a trap with no escape. In them she must have seen his future, his fate to ensnare an angel who would never be able to love him back.

“Oh,” Christine breathes, and she says nothing else. Erik picks up her locket, still with the key opening it, and clicks it shut. It feels wrong to remove the key so he leaves it in and passes them both to her too.

“It is alright, angel,” he says. “It is more than I had hoped for.” Indeed it is beyond his wildest dreams, his love for her tangible and real. He at least does not have to fear his obsession tainting her or some other suitor with a more suitable key. He is at last free to love her, even though he knows now with absolute certainty that he is incapable of inspiring similar sentiments.

“I had always known,” he tells her softly, wanting to stop her from frowning in that way she does before she cries. “I can love you and that is all I want.”

“But you deserve to be loved too,” she says, and with that she dissolves into tears. This time he is the one to move forward and encase her in a hug. It is rather awkward given their respective heights and his inexperience at hugging, and he hopes he is not crushing their lockets between them in a way that is uncomfortable for her, but she doesn’t complain or make any movement to leave. She almost dissolves in his embrace, and he looks over to Marie to see that she has pulled out her handkerchief and is dabbing her eyes as she stands and walks away, either still shaken from the earlier shouting or wanting to give them privacy.

“Will you still marry me?” Christine asks, her voice muffled and horribly choked from phlegm, and Erik loosens his grip to allow her to pull back. She does not, choosing instead to look up at him and momentarily distracting him with the proximity of her lips. “Even though I can’t love you properly?”

“Dearest, of course,” Erik says. “If you still… if you don’t mind-”

“I want you,” Christine says, briefly standing on her toes to give him a quick kiss on his neck. “No matter what some stupid lockets say, I love you.”

* * *

They spend the night in a hotel, refusing Marie’s offer of hospitality and making their goodbyes. Erik supposes he might owe her a debt of gratitude for keeping his key and locket for so long, but surely that would be balanced out by her making Christine so very upset. He wants nothing more to do with this little village, and tomorrow he and Christine will return to Paris where he will build them a new home filled with sunlight and music.

It is in the morning, when he wakes from dreams sweeter than any he’s had before, dreams of him and Christine and their little house, that he sees her sitting next to him holding his locket and humming. The sunrise is far brighter than he’s used to, but it makes her hair a golden halo around her head and he admires it until he realises the light is not only reflecting off of his fiancée’s hair.

There is a large golden key in her hands, and it is shining as she plays with it, turning it over and over. He almost tells her to stop, but as he lifts his head she looks at him and beams, the most joyful expression he has ever seen on anybody.

“Erik, look,” she says, lifting the locket towards him. Her fingers trace over the half hidden notes and he realises that they are twisting in a pattern, exactly like the twisting stem of the rose winding its way up Christine’s golden key. And she begins to hum again, the notes that Erik can now read as she turns the locket over to follow the pattern, and once she reaches the end she brushes her thumb aside to reveal a growing keyhole.

Erik is fully awake now as he watches his locket shift and grow, and Christine takes her key and angles it towards the new keyhole. It’s a perfect fit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and for all the kind comments! I am working on a sequel from Christine's POV but can make no promises as to when that will be finished. In the meantime feel free to visit me on my [tumblr](https://theshadowedqueen82.tumblr.com/). There's a fair bit of symbolism with all the heart lockets and keys, so if you're curious feel free to ask!


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